DOE Geothermal Data Repository: Getting More Mileage Out of Your Data

Abstract

All data submitted to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Geothermal Data Repository (GDR) is eventually made public. The metadata for these data submissions is searchable in multiple data catalogs, including the GDR catalog and the data catalog on OpenEI.org. Because it is a node on the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS), all data on the GDR are also discoverable through both the Library and the map-based search features of the NGDS. In 2015, NGDS developers will work with the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) to enable the display and discovery of geospatial data submitted to the GDR directly in the NGDS map search feature, providing an additional means by which data will be discoverable through the NGDS interface. Furthermore, select GDR submissions are also assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), and as a byproduct of this assignment, these submissions are automatically registered in the Office of Science and Technical Information (OSTI) DataCite catalog. From there, these data are federated to additional sites both domestic and international, including Science.gov and WorldWideScience.org. This paper will explore in detail the wide reach of data submitted to the GDR and how this exposure can dramatically increase the utility of submitted data.